if in a drawingroom. In winter railway travelling is the most comfortable, for one thing the warmest.
As we have no waste spaces, and depôts for the reception and distribution of produce have not to be far apart, we have need for a vast railway system. Heavy goods of all kinds are carried underground. Articles are rarely consumed in any quantity where they are produced. This causes a great amount of traffic. Trains are run very frequently. We have branch lines and perfect communication with every district. They do not run from city to city, because we have no cities in the ordinary sense of the term. In no part have we buildings massed together, no streets, and no dense masses of population. Where manufactures are carried on houses are nearer together; in agricultural areas they are further apart, but they never touch one another. The number of railway stations is regulated by the density of the population of the district, and there is always a station near a depôt for the reception and distribution of commodities.
During my first day's travel nothing occurred that requires mention; but early on the second day a traveller joined me whom I cannot forget in a hurry. He was an old man, very old, one who would appear aged amongst people who are in the habit of growing old. Our people almost always die of old age, and yet, all the old men I have seen appear young when compared with this man.
His hair was a soft white fleece of silvery whiteness and beautiful to look upon, and his full beard reaching down to his waist of the same whiteness gave him a peculiarly venerable appearance. I have never seen a face like his. The skin had in it literally thousands of finely traced wrinkles and was semi-transparent. It appeared as if a faint light glowed beneath it; the features were very fine and harmonius; indeed, he had the peculiar beauty which belongs to the old age of a remarkably good life. Old as he was, he presented no sign of senility; he was active in his movements, and every sense and faculty appeared to be on the alert.
When I saw that the old man intended to get into the train, I went to his assistance and carried a handbag for him. We went into one of the cosy sitting-rooms and got into conversation. He saw that I wore the badge of Freedom, which he also carried, and asked me how I had obtained that honor at such an early period of my youth. His views regarding the use of the badge were entirely in harmony with my own. He had gained the honor by mathematical and astronomical research.
We exchanged cards, and finding that we were bound to the same place, to the intellectual centre of the metropolis, we decided to travel together. I say the centre of the metropolis because the metropolitan area is a thousand miles long and five hundred in width, and contains one fifth of the population of the planet. But even here, each house has about a rood of land, and fruits
